“Becoming Critically Reflective: A Process of Learning and Change” is also a great re-read. Teaching sometimes forces us along a linear path–tomorrow there are more classes to be taught, more lesson plans to be made, and who has time to reflect? We must make the time to reflect. We need to find some way to re-evaluate ourselves. What are we doing right? More importantly, what are we doing wrong?
These questions make me grateful that librarian Josh Sahib taught us how to upload materials and quizzes into UA Blackboard Learn course shells. Using this method, we can assess what level of information literacy students bring into their first library session as well as what level of information literacy they leave the session with. Assessment can force us to be reflective–it’s hard to ignore hard data.
Larry Sheret and John Steele in their 2013 article, “Information Literacy Assessment,” confirm that it is most advantageous to conduct information literacy assessment as part of the students’ normal class activities. Using UA Blackboard Learn supports this idea–the materials and quizzes are located in their normal Blackboard course shells. Really anything we can do to take the burden off of the professor and make their library visits as seamless as possible is a great benefit, which is what this method of assessment does. I’m excited to see how it will work out.
*This post was mis-published on 9/12 into another blog and found 10/3.